World

Who's Tweeting for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani?

President Hassan Rouhani will attend the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on Tuesday to discuss Iran's nuclear development program, and his English Twitter account is already filled with information about his visit from Tehran.

Even though Facebook and Twitter are blocked in Iran, the president is active on both platforms. It's becoming increasingly clear that a third party is tweeting for Rouhani, who took office in early August.

This tweet and other signs likely show that a communications team is tweeting for Rouhani, according to Clay Shirky, a New York University professor specializing in the social and economic effects of the Internet.

"It's geared to a Western audience — it's in English and Twitter is blocked in Iran, he only re-tweets Iranian sources in English even when those sources tweet bilingually," Shirky wrote in an email to Mashable. "He only follows four sources, and the tweets themselves are clearly written by staff."

The accounts Rouhani follows include Javad Zarif, foreign minister of Islamic Republic of Iran; Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, two reformist politicians; and the official news site associated with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Twitter has verified neither Rouhani's English account, @HassanRouhani, nor his Persian account, @Rouhani_ir. But Rouhani tweeted last week claiming that both are legitimate.

This & @Rouhani_ir are sole English & Persian accounts. All other accounts claiming links to Dr.Rouhani or his office are fake. — Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) September 17, 2013

Twitter verifies accounts of public figures so users can easily find credible sources and the people for whom they are looking. High follower and tweet stats are not reasons Twitter will verify an account.

Yet without official Twitter verification, the ownership of the accounts is unclear. Together, the accounts have a following of nearly 60,000, with the English account pulling most of the weight (47,921 followers and 11,160 followers at the time of writing). Both accounts tweet almost daily.

However, Mohammad Reza Sadeq, Rouhani's media advisor, denied that Rouhani maintains his own Twitter account and blamed former election campaigners and cyberspace fans for maintaining the account, according to a report in The Guardian.

In an email to Mashable, a Twitter spokesperson stated they do not comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons.

For the last four years, Iranians have been only able to access censored sites through VPN technology or other means of redirecting servers outside of the country. Iran's government filters these sites due to the social media activism of the "Green Movement," which protested against the alleged rigged election in June 2009. Currently, the Rouhani administration may have special access to social media sites or also be using VPN. It remains unknown.

But lately, social media use in Iran has gained a great deal of media attention. Earlier this month, it appeared that President Rouhani tweeted out Rosh Hashanah wishes — but The Wall Street Journallater reported that Iran's government called the tweets a hoax.

Last week, Iran briefly unblocked Twitter and Facebook in what was later deemed "a technical glitch" (the networks were re-blocked one day later).

According to a report in The Guardian, the Rouhani administration sees Internet censorship as "futile" and has been trying to lift the ban on Twitter, Facebook and other restricted sites. Since in the Islamic Republic of Iran full governmental authority is under the hand of Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the president is unable to easily stop Internet restrictions. The contradictions in Iran's ruling establishment are clear; Khamenei pushed for a council on cyperspace to police the online activities of Iranian citizens.

Rouhani's predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, did not maintain an active Twitter presence. Several accounts using his name, such as @ahmadinejad and @Mahmoudmyman, have fewer than 3,000 followers and are most likely fake.

Rouhani's more active presence on Twitter shows his more open beliefs on Internet freedom and censorship than his predecessor.

The president's political beliefs sway more moderate than Ahmadinejad's hardliner policies. In the June 2013 election, Rouhani ran as the sole moderate among the other eight candidates. His campaign focused on improving the economy and relations with the international community. Rouhani previously led the nuclear negotiations under the presidency of Mohammad Khatami (one of the four accounts he follows on Twitter), during which Rouhani negotiated a deal stopping Iran's enrichment of uranium in 2003. This deemed him the "diplomatic sheikh," as reported byThe Washington Post.

The Iranian president's moderate platform also advocates for greater social freedoms and gender equality. Recently, he retweeted @MeetIran in support of the release of human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was imprisoned for three years after the Green Movement. He also tweeted his support of Iran's first female triathlete, Shirin Gerami. Previously, Iranian officials restricted female athletes, like swimmer Elham Asghari, from officially competing.

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